The emotional impact caused by a traumatic event and the process of second victimization in forest firefighters.

Jaime Senabre

Director of SINIF.

University of Alicante, Spain.

Abstract:

The forest fire extinguishing services sometimes face critical situations that can suppose a traumatic experience capable of generating a deep discomfort in the interveners, such as the loss of companions during the work of extinction, burns caused by the fire, the emotional impact in situations of entrapment, etc. This type of negative events can provoke fear and feelings of terror in the victims, as well as invisible emotional scars, difficult to erase and of complex approach.

An inadequate assistance to this type of professionals, affected by a critical incident of these characteristics can originate various processes of victimization, causing a psychological damage characterized by pain, anger, indignation, guilt, fear, awe, intense re-experimentation of what was lived, physiological and psychological hyperactivation, apathy, helplessness, feeling of loss of control, insecurity and avoidance behaviors.

The absence of empathy and sensitivity of the staff that attends to the victims, together with a lack of information and a mismatch between the expected and received treatment can cause a negative feeling in the firefighters affected by the traumatic incident, capable of initiating a process of revictimization called second victimization. In this work, concepts such as traumatic experience, traumatic event, psychological damage and second victimization are addressed.

Likewise, the conditioning factors of the emotional impact (external and internal), the objectives of the psychological help work and the basic skills to develop it are pointed out. Also, the phases through which the forest firefighters go when they suffer a revictimization are indicated. 

Finally, some guidelines are offered on what to do to avoid a second victimization.

Citation: Senabre, Jaime (2018).  The emotional impact caused by a traumatic event and the process of second victimization in forest firefighters. In Journal of Psychology and Psychotherapy, Vol. 8, pp 38 DOI: 10.4172/2161-0487-C3-030

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Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy